Month: April 2012

NEW YORK – After the success of the Super Bowl halftime show, Moment Factory is now ready for the world tour with Madonna. The star chose the Montreal company for the visual signature of her new show, which will be launched on May 31 in Tel Aviv. “The team is very happy to continue working with Madonna,” says Julie Armstrong-Boileau, she adds. With this tour of 76 concerts, Moment Factory marks another blow. February 5, the spectacle of half-time Super Bowl was watched by 111.3 million people. The next day, the company participated in the show’s New York Jay-Z at Carnegie Hall. “The team that worked with me on the show of the Super Bowl is the same as for this tour, hoping that it is a feast for the eyes and ears”, Madonna slipped to MTV at the launch of her perfume New York recently.

In an interview after the Super Bowl in February, Eric Fournier, executive producer of Moment Factory said about Madonna: “It is necessary for high quality standards, it is demanding of herself and she understands exactly what happening on stage. “ The key was in the Moment Factory video projections on a huge canvas held on the floor before the stage and lighting effects.

Moment Factory has several projects underway in the U.S. and Europe. The company works on the new headquarters of Euronews in Lyon, France. It will also be part of the tender of the City of New York who wants to brighten lower Manhattan, a neighborhood that rises from the ashes 11 years after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The company employs about sixty people from 12 different countries. Its head office is located on Hutchison Street, Montreal.

Finally the new Malawi president has opened up to show how she feels about Madonna who fired her sister Anjimile Oponyo saying that she has a problem with the way Madonna changed her mind about her projects in Malawi.

The new president sounds less enthusiastic about singer Madonna, who has adopted two Malawian children but scrapped the building of an elite academy for girls, announcing plans for 10 schools instead.

“Madonna came to Malawi and Madonna came to build a school, an academy like the one Oprah Winfrey built here in South Africa, but she changed her mind so I have a problem with a lot of things around the adoption of the children and the changing of the mind and then coming back to build community schools.” Mrs Banda told the guardian news

“She’s not interested in investing any more – she has closed her offices in Malawi. We have accepted her position and we respect her decision and I personally don’t have any further comment about that.” she said

Madonna had a dream to build a girl school in Malawi and the changed her mind after the project was hit with a financial scandal involving Joyce Banda’s sister Anjimile Oponyo whom she fired Banda’s from running her never-built leadership academy. It was a very big scandal in Malawi.
Madonna had contracted to pay a whopping $380,000.

Then it turned out no one knew where the money was going, and Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi–a front for the Kabbalah Center of Los Angeles–was being investigated by the IRS.

Apparently the managers which included Joyce Banda’s sister Aponjile squandered millions of dollars before the project began.

An audit revealed that $3.8 million was spent before construction for the $15 million academy even began,

The money was apparently lost in design fees, staff salaries, cars, and free housing and a golf course membership for Oponyo.

However Joyce Banda’s sister and the other workers contracted for the leadership academy sued Madonna, who of course counter sued. The case was finally settled out of court, with Madonna agreeing to pay about $150,000 to Oponyo and other dismissed workers. The whole episode left a bad taste behind for all concerned.

Now Oponyo’s sister is president of the country and its not known what will happen to madonna and her projects but clearly Joyce Banda is not amused.

Madonna adopted two Malawian children and started the charity, Raising Malawi, in 2006. It assists orphanages and other aid programs in the country.

But Madona said she was happy that Malawi’s former vice president is now leading the country despite the roughed up relationship.

The singer called Joyce Banda “amazing” and said she interviewed the 62-year-old for her 2008 documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” about Malawian orphans who lost family members to HIV/AIDS.

“She was really into girls being educated in Africa, which is a good thing, So, I’m glad.” Madonna said in an interview.

Why a pop star would want to be dignified is a good question, but wearing thigh-high boots and putting out another album has got the pundits tut-tutting. A woman of her age should know better.

There’s a tone to this criticism that wouldn’t enter the equation for Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan.

Ageing male rock stars are not immune from criticism but it’s usually affectionate and their “dignity” is not called into question. And age doesn’t seem to detract from their sex appeal much either; if anything it confers a bit of extra street cred – still out there after all these years.

Madonna looks and sounds at least as good if not better than many of her male contemporaries in the same age bracket. You may not like her genre but she has every right to keep doing the stuff that has made her a household name and an extremely wealthy woman.

And it’s easy to forget that she was a pioneer.

Women mega-pop stars didn’t really exist before her, and certainly not stars who so obviously ran their own show in every sense – the current example being Lady Gaga.

A good business brain as well as the essential ability to read the zeitgeist made her an unusually resilient performer and an icon.

Some of the recent criticism of Madonna has honed in on her supposedly unseemly efforts to defy ageing by cosmetic means and obsessive exercise and dieting.

Anyone taken a good look at Jagger lately? A man of nearly 70 certainly doesn’t look like that without some help. Sure, there are plenty of wrinkles but he is very fit and his hair has definitely been chemically enhanced for some years.

Good on him. But why is it so awful when Madonna does her bit (perhaps more than a bit, admittedly) to hold back the years?

It’s her job to be glamorous. You can imagine the commentary if she didn’t make any effort to look good.

But what has got a lot of music and pop culture critics tied up in knots in recent weeks has been something unrelated to the quality of Madonna’s latest CD.

It’s a tussle to acknowledge that a woman over 50 can continue to do her job, which in Madonna’s case means strutting the stage and exhibiting sexuality.

It’s pretty unusual. We don’t even have that many women in the public sphere to start with, and older women are scarce in just about any formal arena, much less pop music.

Meryl Streep is an example of a woman who has sustained her career in a youth-obsessed industry (and if you want to be inspired, make sure you watch her recent tribute to Hillary Clinton at the Women in the World Summit in New York).

It’s also been terrific to see some of the stereotypes about older women challenged in the political sphere by Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and IMF head Christine Lagarde.

The women CEOs of listed Australian companies are in a similar age bracket, but there are hardly any of them (only 3 per cent of the ASX200). Australia doesn’t have a great track record with keeping older women in the fray, although the statistics are improving in line with demographics.

The increasing numbers of women of mature years in jobs will not in itself normalise their participation. That will take some concerted awareness-raising and attitude changing.

The Diversity Council of Australia’s Working for the Future research found that age discrimination was the most common type reported.

At 14 per cent, it was almost twice that of the next most common perceived discrimination, gender (8 per cent) and care-giving responsibilities (8 per cent).

If you combine all three of those discrimination areas, you get a poorer outcome for women, and the older age group in particular.

Producers are trying to get the ‘Hung Up’ singer on an upcoming Sunday night results show in a bid to attract record ratings, the Daily Star Sunday reports.

“Getting Madge on to sing is bound to pull in the viewers. You don’t get much bigger than her – she’s a living legend,” a source told the paper.

“The show has regularly been getting ratings of over ten million. Having Madonna, plus the all-important results, could push it past the 12 million mark.

“X Factor’s finest hour was getting Britney Spears on – but there’s no doubt Madonna is a much bigger name. Simon Cowell will be furious if The Voice upstages him with a massive guest performer like Madonna in its first series.”

Madonna’s “W.E.” movie will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in the US on May 1st. If you haven’t done so yet, make sure to pre-order your copy now!

To celebrate the release, we are happy to give away 10 copies of the movie on DVD. For a chance to win, create your own review of the movie in 200 words or less. Please e-mail it to madonnacontests@gmail.com along with your full name and mailing address before 11:59pm EST on April 8th, using “My W.E. Review” as your e-mail’s subject line.

The top 10 entries will be mailed a “W.E.” DVD and Madonna’s favourite review will be featured on Madonna.com as the official fan review for the movie.

Please note: This giveaway is limited to US and Canada residents. This is an Internet offer only. All entries must be submitted via email to madonnacontests@gmail.com.

When Madonna asked for her beloved Iconers to help her find the perfect name for her 2012 Tour pit, we didn’t realize the related contest would turn to be such a success… So many of you came up with cool names that Madonna couldn’t pick one but used them as a source of inspiration instead.

Today, we are happy to announce that the pit now has a name, but also that we don’t have 1 big winner and 4 finalists but 4 big winners! Those 4 lucky fans are behind Madonna’s choice to officially name her tour pit “The Golden Triangle”.

If your Icon display name is listed below, we are happy to confirm that you have won a pair (2) of Golden Triangle tickets to the MDNA show of your choice, along with a copy of the “Truth or Dare” tour documentary on Blu-ray!

Also, please note that some of the picked names were submitted by different members and so to make it fair to all of them, each winner is the one who submitted that particular name first.

Last, but not least, Madonna liked the entry of member wahoolagirl (USA), who submitted the “Queen’s Courtyard” name and wins a pair of Golden Triangle tickets too!

Congratulations to our winners and thank you to all of you Iconers for such a fantastic time!

“Madonna has no patience for stupid people,” said expert perfumer Stephen Nilsen, at the recent London launch of the popstar’s debut perfume. But as the veteran “nose” discovered, she doesn’t make it all that easy on the clever ones, either. The creator of fragrances for Sarah Jessica Parker, Tom Ford and Tommy Hilfiger, Nilsen is comfortable working with the biggest names in the industry. But even he was thrown by Madonna’s chilly demeanour on their first meetings to produce her perfume Truth or Dare, during which she refused to remove her sunglasses. “It was a little intimidating,” he admitted. And that was when he was granted an audience. More often than not in those first months of development, Nilsen was left in the dark about the actual direction Madonna intended for her perfume.

“She told me she wanted white florals, and she loved the ‘addiction’ accord I created,” – a blend of vanilla, caramel and amber. But it was hard to schedule face time with the busy performer, essential when trying to peg a client’s tastes and establish a common vocabulary. Instead, Nilsen found himself scurrying back and forth between his Manhattan lab and Madonna’s £20m Upper East Side compound every time he made a revision. “I’d throw each new sample over her 8ft-high black steel wall,” he joked. Fortunately, his pitching arm was saved: “Security always magically appeared behind me when I would ring the bell, as if they knew I was coming.

“She needed the latest versions delivered by 2pm on a Friday afternoon so she could evaluate them over the weekend at her horse farm in the Hamptons.”

Her Madgesty’s notes would then filter back – broad critiques such as “too sweet”, which given the vast palette of a perfumer, could mean any number of things. It turned into a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey as the perfumer struggled to second-guess the source of Madonna’s displeasure, blending endless modifications in order to secure her approval. “Once we started working together in person, it became much easier,” he recalled with evident relief. As they developed their rhythm of working, Nilsen was impressed by the accuracy of Madonna’s sense of smell and her increasing ability to identify individual elements. Not unexpectedly, the multimillionaire star was drawn to the most expensive raw materials in recreating the memory of her mother’s perfume from more than 40 years ago, the perfumer revealed. “She has a real appreciation of luxury,” he enthused. But when cautioned about safety restrictions on her favourite ingredients imposed by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA), she became exasperated. “Fuck IFRA!” she snapped at one point.

Despite having no training in the world of perfumery, Madonna was adamant that she did not want musk in Truth Or Dare’s formula. “I tried to explain to her that it needed musk to round the edges, like you sand and seal a stippled wall,” Nilsen remembered. In the end, he took a chance and went ahead with a version that included the much-needed musk. When he nervously presented it to Madonna, he said she smelled it sceptically, then grudgingly conceded, “OK – you were right. Leave in the musk.”

After working with the expert perfumer, surely Madonna must have received quite an education in fine fragrance? Was she Eliza Doolittle to his Henry Higgins? Nilsen paused, then responded with a sheepish smile, “I think I was the Eliza Doolittle.” Oh yes? And what did Madonna teach him? “She taught me to be a better perfumer.”

And how can he not be a better perfumer, given the number of Truth Or Dare variations Nilsen was required to submit before the demanding star was satisfied with her signature scent. “There were 200,” he confirmed, adding that a perfume is often completed with half that number. “But I have had clients who’ve required even more.” He may regret letting that slip if Madonna ever decides to try out more fragrances for perfume number two.